


Alaska Love Song

by psycho_raven



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Big Boss is already dead but oh boy does he haunts snake, Gen, Ghosts, Healing, Iditarod, Miller actually appears a lot, Minor Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sled Dog Race, Sled Dog Races instead of therapy, Snake + Miller friendship, bonding with dogs actually helps snakes depression, hints of depression, hints of past Snake/Fox, this is my Alaska love letter tho, tons of Alaska's Inuit mithology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 09:28:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21317920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psycho_raven/pseuds/psycho_raven
Summary: Snake gets lost in Alaska. David also founds himself again in Alaska.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	Alaska Love Song

It’s always going to be like this for him, Snake thinks.

Alaska projects itself endless before his eyes. Snake breathes the cold into his lungs and watches how the snow covers everything in its way. It’s almost comforting to find beauty in desolation. Alaska always stays the same. His trips to the wilderness are always more about getting lost in thoughts than collecting wood. There are times he can only hear his own footsteps, softened against the snow. It makes things easier.

Alaska is gentle with the broken, Snake thinks with the cigarette in his hands. The smoke above his head seems almost solid because of the freezing breeze that enters his body and cracks his bones. But it's fine like this, he kinda likes it. His cabin is in a remote place, far away from any reminder of the life he left behind. Alaska is almost an island, a desert, and so is he. It's better if the landscape matches whatever it's happening inside of him. Deserts are always hot and burning with the sun above your head and the sand itching in your feet. But Alaska burns in a different way. In winter there is nothing for kilometers as in the Atacama, but there is always life in Alaska and that's a miracle on its own.

He wishes his own desolation could be this beautiful. But there is no glory in what he has seen. Snake closes his eyes, the cigarette between his lips. The silence surrounds him but it never stays like that. With his eyes closed, he can almost hear Big Boss’s cracked laugh filling every space of his body only to leave him emptier with the silence that comes after. Gray Fox's voice follows it, too gentle for a soldier on the verge of dying. Rough like his hands but terribly gentle. His hair was white, the blood always looks brighter against white. Like the snow.

Snake knows it's time to go back to the cabin. It's getting dark outside. 

* * *

Sometimes, Snake goes off his way so he can talk to the people who have always lived on the ice. The land’s full of mysteries and stories he doesn’t grasp that well yet. He always had a soft spot for tales from distant times, ancient knowledge that can put a heartbeat into words. In the FoxHound era, when he was just a rookie, he always sat beside his elders to listen carefully to their war stories about dust and blood. Most of the time the stories were more about love and friendship than heroism and pride. He liked that. Maybe that’s what dragged him close to Grey Fox in the first place--

Snake stops his train of thought right there, an old ache in his chest. He is surprised to find it almost familiar, the visit from an old friend who carries bittersweet memories but who he is always happy to see. There are stories about pain, too.

He starts walking just before sunrise. The land under his feet is immense, and the dramatic winter light tells a story on its own as it crawls above rivers, vast forests, rugged wilderness, and miles of coastline. The last frontier makes sure you don’t forget why it's the last. He makes his way to the coastline, where the people don’t know this was supposed to be a frontier.

The mountains rise above the sea just to dissolve without warning into the same horizon line. In the distance, Snake distinguishes the first fishermen preparing themselves for work. Some days he approaches them with coffee and stories to share, other days he just sits far away to watch their routine, the rise of a new day. It’s reassuring in some way. 

“The spirit dies if you don’t feed it,” Martin says while Snake helps him push the boat into the ocean. “Nobody does this anymore. Not in the city at least, it’s just some of us out there.” 

Snake likes him. Martin seems older than him, with his telling him ancient tales of the Inuit. His dark skin, wide nose and vibrant smile are usually all he can see behind the thick fur of the hood that protects him from the ocean breeze. “But what about you?”

He shakes his head for an answer, with his hands free his first instinct is to look for a cigarette. “Nothing more to do for me out there.”

Martin looks at him with deep dark eyes and smiles. “There is always something. Told you, you need to keep your spirit fed. There is no shame in being a hungry beast, we are all.”

_ That's exactly what I’m trying not to do _ , Snake thinks.  _ To keep feeding the beast. _

Martin sits on his boat, the waves gently moving him around while he waits for the perfect moment to sail. “Have you heard about the shadow people?” Snake says no again, the cigarette already on his lips. He wonders if this is a change of subject or a deep push into it.

“They go by another name, the Taqriaqsuit. These people live as we do in a world of their own, but this is a world is beyond our perception. They are almost never seen, but sometimes when conditions are right the Taqriaqsuit can be heard.

“That’s the sound of footsteps when nobody is around. A low murmur as if someone is talking or laughing when you are alone. That’s how you know a Taqriaqsuit is near. But they don’t like to be caught, when this happens and people notice their presence, they vanish quickly. Stories tell us that some Inuit have crossed over into their world, but few have ever returned to tell us what it is like.

“… But it must be lonely, to wander without ever being seen, to run away from any encounter just to turn your back and go back to your own world. I hope it is a good world with a good life, worth the hiding.”

When Martin sails, Snake stays by the shore to watch him disappear on the horizon line, ever distant. He wonders how to know when something it’s worth it, how to measure the hiding and running against those little meaningful encounters. Grey Fox’s voice in the dark, his laugh without a face like the Taqriaqsuit. His own footsteps against the cold platform of an enemy base, the last sound the soldiers heard before a knife sliced their necks.

And then, the inevitable return to his own world.

* * *

“Just get some dogs, David.” Master Miller never calls him by his codename when they are off duty. And now that they are always off duty, Snake is David once again.

“...Dogs? I don’t see how dogs are related to all the crap that happened, Master.” 

They walk side by side along the road that the pines make. It’s only them in their own little world, with the vast white immensity in front of them. It’s a tacit agreement; they never approach directly the topic of what happened in Zanzibar. David never asks  _ how did you get to know him so well? _ or  _ did it hurt?  _ Because he knows the answers will come implicitly eventually. What they can talk about is what happens after the war.

“Dogs are good tamers,” Millers says, using a stick full of knots as a cane. Y _ ou would never be able to guess he lacks not one, but two extremities _ , Snake thinks. He listens carefully, sensing one of those answers lingering beneath his dog talk.

“Dogs are smart, good listeners.” Miller continues, something distant in his eyes. A reminiscence, maybe. “Even demons listen to them. They make good company and soften the soul.”

“Never thought you would be so… passionate about dogs, Master.” 

Miller just smirks. “I have seen what they can do. You know I only talk from experience.”

“Can’t deny that.” David agrees. They walk in silence for a few minutes.

“Besides…” Miller is the first to break the silence. David doesn’t mind. “Don’t think I didn’t see you with the FoxHound dogs. You used to feed them after the afternoon training, they liked you.”

Snake laughs and it’s only half bitter. “They liked the food.”

“You are wrong. Dogs are good judges of character. C’mon, David. I’m retired and I’m still supposed to teach you things?” Miller says with a smile that makes him look ten or twenty years younger, far away from the Hell Master.

“One never stops learning,” Dave says, returning the smile and trying not to think about how he used to feed those dogs while waiting for Fox to finish his training.

* * *

Snake gets the dogs and the first thing the mushers say to him is that this is not a hobby, it’s a lifestyle. Snake doesn’t see the problem with it; he never had much of a hobby besides occasional photography. He doesn’t have much of a life either.

He brings home ten pups. It’s a good number to start, they say. People also say that happiness lies in the repetition of simple chores. For David, happiness seems too ambitious, but he is content with some calm. So he makes little houses for the dogs and starts reading books about breeding and training.

He decides to build the sled himself. Crafting distracts the mind and the satisfaction of running on a machine made by himself gives him a spark of something he hasn’t felt in a while. It’s a good something and without noticing, Snake starts making plans.

The pups keep him in movement, forced to do manual labor in the outside with the sun at his back or with the sounds of his boots crushing the leaves of the fall while they wait for the first snow. There is so much to do and David surprises himself by enjoying it. He can feel his hands going sore again because of the work, chopping, preparing their meals, carrying their water. It’s better than the cold feeling of a bottle’s glass against his skin, different from the warm ache of a gun. He could do this for a long time, Dave thinks. And it scares him to be thinking forward, but the barking of the pups distracts him from deepening that thought.

And of course, there are the dogs. Martin goes to see him one morning and laughs so hard at the sight that birds fly away from the top of the trees. In front of him, David fights against ten muscular pups to make them train, but they don’t seem to like the idea of going far away from their little wooden houses.

“You have to teach them how to be brave,” he says. Snake sighs loudly, watching them take bites of meat with the energy he wishes they put on the training. “That’s something you learn, nobody is born with courage. Not even beasts.”

“I wonder about that,” David mutters and sits by his side, sharing cheap coffee. “I have always been obliged to have at least some courage.”

“But there must have been someone from who you learned how to have it the right way.”

He doesn’t answer that, a bitterness different from the taste of the coffee on the tip of his tongue, together with a codename.

But then Snake remembers the importance of positive reinforcement, so that’s what he does. With some treats the dogs start to leave the nest, following him around as one of his own. That’s how they start exploring near the lake.

_ “Good job, kid” The hand of Big Boss on his head feels like it has all the weight of the world on his fingertips. But his words make him light as a feather. Make him float. _

Years of military discipline make him a good instructor, harsh enough for the dogs to listen to him but caring as he has always been. That’s how he starts getting results.

“You care too much,” Fox said once. “That’s dangerous in our line of work.” Snake shrugged, taking the cigarette from Fox’s fingers to have a taste. He knew what he was trying to say, to not care so much about him. “Can’t stop, I think.”  _ Even less if it is about you _ .

Miller comes to see him train one day. He laughs about how the new Hell Master should be Dave but doesn’t return to watch any other dog training. Snake doesn’t have to wonder why. The image probably too similar, and the wound wide open as if it was cut yesterday.

* * *

The first snow catches him by surprise, just in time for the first run.

By the time the first snowflake dissolves into the ground, they are no longer pups. They are dogs, brave and proud. Snake talks to them gives them names and imagine which positions they would have occupied in FoxHound. The smart one in the Intel team; the one dog whose paws don’t make any sound against the foil could have been one of his own.

“You all would have liked him. I think it would have been mutual.” Snake says while slipping boots over icy paws. “He always got along better with beasts.” He murmurs and fits their bodies into the harnesses, the sled holding tight. “‘Specially the free ones.”

Regardless of everything, in this life, they just want to run. That’s all that’s needed of them and they do it splendidly. Breathtaking, how life rises anew from the white cold.

Snake has seen many Alaska winters since he moved there. There is always a first snow. But none like this. None took him by surprise like the one from the winter he ran with his dogs for the first time. It’s snowing and it feels as if it was the first time he has seen that damn white stuff. The first white November morning of his life, on the sled with ten dogs full of energy and just  _ running _ .

He wonders if all this running is some kind of metaphor. If by this he is running from his problems, from the nightmares and the asphyxiating need to have a bottle of whiskey in his hand. But Alaska forgives him and the dogs push him through the ice and the snow as if his weight was nothing, his sins nonexistent.

He doesn’t want to be anywhere else. And for those moments, for those miles, there are only the sounds of the paws against the ground and nothing more. That kind of silence is a miracle. 

* * *

It’s 7:30 in the morning, the coffee pitch black on the table as is the sky outside the cabin. It won’t be light until ten, winter nights stretching like shadows under his feet. Snake has time to check on the dogs and have a decent breakfast, the training forcing him to consume something more than cheap whiskey and rations.

The morning chores start with the first light, his eyes adjusting to the whiteness of the landscape after so much darkness. Snake prepares the morning broth for the dogs to have their breakfast, his hands stained by the blood of the meat water. He doesn’t find it disgusting; it’s a better kind of blood to have on his hands.

He is warming the water for the meat to sink in when Martin finds him. They talk over the woodstove before he goes back to his own training with his dogs and wife. Snake thinks this is the first time he had a friend with married life and the concept strikes him as weird. “Routine does you good,” he says. “And those dogs of yours? I think you make a good team. After all the years of solo work, this is what you need.”

David knows his friend is right. He makes a habit out of it and finds that it’s true, happiness - or at least calm - framed by the repetition of simple labors. Nothing that’s life or death, just chopping, carrying water and taking care of someone else. And yet it amazes him every single time, how the human race, the same that invented war and guns and betrayal, could create something pure and beautiful like mushing.

The job includes a lot of touching. The dogs react to his voice every time he puts on the harnesses, trying to lick off his badly shaved beard, big paws on his chest. His own laugh sounds alien to him, the echo of a muffled chuckle making the dogs bark in approval. 

The dogs carry him and Alaska is born anew on his eyes. By the end of the day, it’s him and his pack at dusk, with a tiredness they can feel in their bones but with great satisfaction.. The stars shine brighter than anywhere else above their heads, Snake can hear them munch their food as he bites his own with contentment. It’s a good life, that quiet moment on their own, it’s something nobody can take away from you. One dog walks to his side, his head brushing Snake’s ankle before closing his eyes. Goodnight, Snake answers.

Days later Millers laughs softly on a winter afternoon, one of the dogs resting on his good leg. “Told you, dogs are good tamers.” Even behind the glasses, Dave knows his eyes are somewhere else, far away.

* * *

The next morning Snake prepares the dogs for a new trip, this one on more isolated terrain. There is something about the solitude of the ice that drags him like gravity. The dogs seem to like it, there is always open terrain for them to run as much as they want to. It’s a kind of freedom they can share.

In the distance, mountains look down on him. The mountains are the first to warn him.

He has heard about it, from Martin when sharing a cup of coffee after a long day of training. “They are not evil spirits, David.” Snake remembers him saying. “They are misunderstood like many are. The Ijiraat surround themselves by mirages. When the land tricks your eyes and mountains look bigger or closer than they really are, an Ijiraat might be near.”

It’s the mountains first, looking as if they are about to crumble over him.  _ It’s just plain old hallucinations _ , Snake mutters to himself, but he knows about the supernatural and doesn’t deny it. Still, another episode of PTSD seems more likely and he remains calm, mentally checking his survival gear. The mountains feel closer and closer, the terrain where they are running almost too narrow. But the dogs don’t notice anything, still pulling him along what looks like an endless corridor.

That’s when he hears him. It’s always his voice first, still like iron and with the force of a thousand avalanches. Big Boss’s voice is unique, you couldn’t mistake it even in the middle of a hurricane. He is expecting the cruel laugh and the mocking tone:  _ You don’t have it in you, boy.  _ And of course the almost ridiculously cliche and yet painful: _ I’m your father. _

But it never comes. Instead, he hears clear as the ice of the mountains:  _ Keep pushing forward, kid. You can do this. _

Snake wants to throw up. How many times did he long for words of approval like those? He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, focusing on the sounds of the dogs running in front of him. But then Fox’s voices join Big Boss and Snake is so sure he can hear something shattering in his chest.“I always believed in you, rookie.” That confident tone, the half-smirk. He can picture Frank Jaeger standing before him, the stance of a warrior. But the image is overtaken by the one of a broken, bloody warrior and the tired smile of a tragic farewell.

It’s the barking of the dogs that pulls him back together. Dogs are smart, compassionate and knowing. They bark with all their lungs and Snake wonders if they can hear it too - Aren’t the hallucinations at least personal? He wants to laugh, but his throat’s dry and his voice doesn’t come. But it doesn’t matter, the dogs keep barking until the mountains are in their place again, the ghosts long gone.

“The Ijiraat appear to give a message,” Martin said that one time. “Sometimes, there are a lot of messages to give.” Snake remember but still doesn’t get it. It’s getting dark and home looks too far away.

* * *

He still has to feed the dogs and keep them in good shape - it doesn’t matter how drunk, lonely or fucked up Snake is. The good thing is that the dogs don’t judge him, don’t make any remarks or give him any pitying looks. They wait for him like every other day and are happy at his arrival even when his face is that of someone who doesn’t remember how to sleep or shower properly. Defeated and angry because  _ things were better, why now? Ijiraat be damned. _

The cabin remains dark and winter aligns with something deep inside his chest, something harsh between his ribs. It’s good to have just four hours of light. The sun doesn’t dare to rise, to keep mocking him because  _ you killed them, with your own hands, _ and nobody besides him cares, no one mourns.

That’s a lie, David knows it. Maybe that’s why he keeps gravitating towards Miller. The unspoken ache they share emerges as a bond created around nightmares and betrayals.

“Still don’t get the message?” Miller says, his hand scratching the back of a lazy dog.

“With all respect, Master, I think it’s bullshit.”

Miller laughs but it doesn’t sound happy, just resigned. “I got the message once, but chose to ignore it,” he responds.

Dave pours some whiskey for both of them, the cabin dark with only the shine of Miller’s prosthetic arm in the darkness. Still, he doesn’t take off the sunglasses.

“Have you heard about the Iditarod?” David is thankful for the change of subject. He empties half of the glass in one sip and answers.

“Iditarod, huh...? Think I heard Martin talk about it before, he has been doing some training for it.”

“Yeah, sign-ups are closed. You should give it a chance. Just you and the dogs out there, with a clear goal in mind. I think you had to do a qualifying race, but I’m sure you can steal someone's identity to enter.” Miller says half-joking, half-serious. But they both know it’s the truth. 

“Doesn’t sound too bad” Dave admits, his eyes on the melting ice in his glass. The training is what has him on his feet, after all. And the dogs would surely enjoy some competition. He doesn’t know why, but suddenly he has the sensation that Miller is smiling even if his face is hidden by the shadows of the cabin.

“We have known each other for a long time, David.” Miller continues, the clink of the ice cubes in his glass making the ears of the dog move slightly. “We have seen some shit together, haven’t we? Good days, bad days… And let me tell you something, you met me on my not so bad days.”

This time Dave makes a sound similar to a laugh, still too wounded but close enough. “Huh, don’t wanna know how the bad ones were.”

David doesn’t say that he didn’t meet him on the good ones either but thinks it’s not necessary. Miller knows, and even if he can’t see his eyes in the pitch-black darkness of the night in Alaska, he can recognize the nostalgia in his voice when he continues.

“I think the good days are the ones that haunt you the most. The best times, you know.”

Snake thinks about it, Big Boss’s voice when praising a good CQC move, far away as a fading ghost. “Can’t argue with that.”

“Don’t let the good days of Alaska be a haunting memory. Cherish them. Find the meaning behind the ghost, Dave. You have a good pack by your side.”

David drinks the last sip, a dog’s paw resting gently on his feet. It’s going to be the last glass of whiskey for a while if he is planning on competing. Frank always encouraged sobriety while training.

“And David? Buy a goddamn light bulb.”

* * *

David never cared much about winning or losing, even with the harsh competition of Foxhound. It was always more about proving himself, about learning and moving forward. It was about showing what was he capable of to Fox, and to Big Boss too.

Alaska is like a desert. There is no one out there besides him and his ten brave, loyal dogs. Not even Miller with their shared understanding, or Martin with his easy smile. Alaska could be an island, a piece of ice and wildness drifting away on the ocean. But it isn’t. Alaska extends itself as mountains, forests and the untamed sounds of the breeze against the trees, the waves against the shore, and the dogs against the wind itself, making their own road as they keep moving.

Here, there is nobody to prove anything to. No one who expects him to be some kind of movie hero, too unreal to feel, too perfect, composed and correct to think:  _ He was my friend, it was just work. I shouldn’t have had to kill him. _ Or.  _ That bastard was my father, how long did he know?  _ That’s the trick with the movies, Snake thinks. You don’t get to see the aftermath, the lonely hero drinking himself to sleep and thinking about all those nameless bastards who died on screen.

On the sled, those questions remain unanswered, but they don’t bother him that much. Snake checks the dogs’ paws at every stop, making sure there are no injuries needing taken care of. The dogs bark at him with the joy that fills them when they run. And running is such a simple thing, like the wind against his face and the sound of the snow giving under the sled. There is beauty in simplicity and Snake keeps learning things on his training for the Iditarod.

The sun sets early and Snake decides to rest for a while with the dogs. Lying against a tree, he takes a moment to look at them, feeling that instant sink into his skin. It’s just them in their own world, and maybe without all the betrayal, grief and hurting, moments like this would be impossible. He thinks about Miller and his skin hardened by years of unknown tragedy. Martin happily married after a life fighting against some evil oil corporation. Snake remembers shouting at Big Boss’s face about how much he loved life. That feeling seemed forgotten for a time. But right here and right now, with the dogs surrounding him to sleep by his side, David thinks he catches a glimpse of that feeling.

He is not naive, of course. Snake thinks with his hands resting on a soft dog’s head. He will have nightmares again, he knows it. There is no point in crossing his fingers and wishing for it to not happen, and maybe that’s the trick, to just accept it. But right now he doesn’t feel anything more than the immensity of the land and the unconditional affection of his dogs. Not the echo of distant shots, not the smell of burnt flesh. The snow doesn’t have any scent, and white isn’t a color. It doesn’t take anything from him. A lonely dog’s bark anchors him to the ground and maybe the sun still rises somewhere.

The Iditarod approaches and David waits for the road to travel, this time not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this very pretentious very personal fanfic with almost no ships and only Dave and his dogs as protagonists! You deserve the world. 
> 
> This was a piece for the Lost Years fanzine, an amazing MGS fanzine you cand find online on twitter! My fic was amazingly illustrated by https://emiroseart.carbonmade.com please check their work!


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